A Welcome Overstayed

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq has declared they are ready to take responsibility for security of his country and the Americans can leave "any time they want". This is the nice way of saying "How nice of you to drop by...now F off please." We've become the guest that wouldn't leave at this point and I think they're finally sick of it. The Iraqis are rapidly discovering their democracy cannot be dependant on what the Americans dictate it to be, but rather what they forge by their own hands. Will they be successful? The answer is honestly irrelevent...at least they will have a chance to shape their own future instead of having us stand over their shoulder and tell them what it should be.

Bush has repeated his "stay the course" mantra so many times now the Iraqis are wondering "Is this guy ever going to leave?" Bush has said "We will take the fight to enemy," but what he fails to consider is the fact that we're fighting in someone else's backyard now and destroying everything they own in an attempt to protect them. At some point (like now) the Iraqis just have to say "Screw this! Hey...hey...HEY! I will take care of this myself !"

One thing PM Maliki said troubled me though, stating the Iraqi forces are "still in need of more weapons and rehabilitation." Didn't we just train your guys for a couple of years already? By now you've got to have at least one guy that learned something and can teach everyone else. The law of averages dictates even the soldier that fell asleep during arms training retained some fragment of useful information. Surely they can compare notes or something.

I don't anticipate we'll ever completely leave Iraq, but I believe the bulk of our troops should head home, per the Prime Minister's request. After all, Bush did say "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down". Let's see if he stays true to his word...instead of leaving it as a problem for "the next guy". In my opinion, the longer we stay, the line between ally and enemy will become more blurred and we further risk turning those we're protecting completely against us.